I am not saying absence of everything has every existed in totality; there has always been something in our universe (but maybe there are null universes out there somewhere). I just saying absence of everything could co-exist with something; IE our expanding universe.

If you don't buy the argument that logic and all language is a representation of existence, not existence itself - it's rather moot.

Logic is simply a human effort to describe how reality behaves.
Logic is built upon one simple pre-supposition: Reality behaves and adheres to some set of basic and universal rules.

If this pre-supposition is false then logic is useless.

Nearly everything we know obeys cause and effect, except there is some debate at the quantum world. The fact that we can't measure accurately does not mean its non-deterministic IMO though. They say the quantum world is indeterminate because we can never set up an experiment (with positions and momenta of particles) to 100% accuracy so what follows is indeterminate. Does not mean nature is actually indeterminate IMO.

They say the quantum world is indeterminate because we can never set up an experiment (with positions and momenta of particles) to 100% accuracy so what follows is indeterminate. Does not mean nature is actually indeterminate IMO.

It's approximately determinate and precisely indeterminate. Unless we are wrong and we are just Boltzmann brains.

They say the quantum world is indeterminate because we can never set up an experiment (with positions and momenta of particles) to 100% accuracy so what follows is indeterminate. Does not mean nature is actually indeterminate IMO.

It's approximately determinate and precisely indeterminate. Unless we are wrong and we are just Boltzmann brains.

I am sticking with cause and effect. I don't see how the universe gets things done without it. A non-local version of cause and effect though. As far as quantum mechanics goes, I think something like the Pilot Wave interpretation (non local hidden variables) will turn out to be true...

I am sticking with cause and effect. I don't see how the universe gets things done without it. A non-local version of cause and effect though. As far as quantum mechanics goes, I think something like the Pilot Wave interpretation (non local hidden variables) will turn out to be true...

If you insist on the causal mindset - there is only one problem to be solved (or brushed under the carpet). Infinite regress.

I am sticking with cause and effect. I don't see how the universe gets things done without it. A non-local version of cause and effect though. As far as quantum mechanics goes, I think something like the Pilot Wave interpretation (non local hidden variables) will turn out to be true...

If you insist on the causal mindset - there is only one problem to be solved (or brushed under the carpet). Infinite regress.

What caused the first cause?

If you define the universe as everything there is, then say cause and effect apply, it leads to the conclusion that the universe was caused by the universe.

So it may have been the last effect that caused the first cause in the circler view of time (the big crunch causing the big bang).

So it may have been the last effect that caused the first cause in the circler view of time (the big crunch causing the big bang).

Untestable speculation. It's also a conception which effectively implies that the Universe is a Perpetuum mobile.

For somebody who rejects infinities, infinite energy to feed the perpetual crunch/bang cycle is an interesting claim.

Or you can just get comfortable with the phrase "We don't know and we may never find out". It will do wonders for your anxiety accepting this fact.

I think big bang, big crunch is a self-sustaining model: collapse in under gravity, reaches a critical mass, explodes out, collapse in under gravity, etc... If there is only ever one bang and one crunch then time is circular but finite.

Yes its speculation, but its an interesting way out of the infinite regress...

Yes its speculation, but its an interesting way out of the infinite regress...

Are you now saying that you are opposed to infinite regress, but you are OK with infinite perpetuation?

It seems you want to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to infinities.

What I mean is in the 4d spacetime view, the universe is a giant torus with time going around the ring. It would not perpetuate infinitely, it just is - a completely static object in 4d spacetime. Now does not really exist in the spacetime view of the world.

What I mean is in the 4d spacetime view, the universe is a giant torus with time going around the ring. It would not perpetuate infinitely, it just is - a completely static object in 4d spacetime. Now does not really exist in the spacetime view of the world.

What I mean is in the 4d spacetime view, the universe is a giant torus with time going around the ring. It would not perpetuate infinitely, it just is - a completely static object in 4d spacetime. Now does not really exist in the spacetime view of the world.

A static object doesn’t undergo any expansion or contractions.

A static object is frozen in time - eternally unchanging.

Change requires energy. Perpetual change requires infinite energy.

Where is it coming from?

But if you imagine the universe as a 4d spacetime object then it would be static (time is just another spacial dimension then).

What I mean is in the 4d spacetime view, the universe is a giant torus with time going around the ring. It would not perpetuate infinitely, it just is - a completely static object in 4d spacetime. Now does not really exist in the spacetime view of the world.

A static object doesn’t undergo any expansion or contractions.

A static object is frozen in time - eternally unchanging.

Change requires energy. Perpetual change requires infinite energy.

Where is it coming from?

But if you imagine the universe as a 4d spacetime object then it would be static (time is just another spacial dimension then).

'Empty space' as we call it is actually something and it originated in the Big Bang.

That’s true, and some people tend to confuse the “empty space” that exists within the inner context of the universe with that of the infinite “nothingness” into which the universe is expanding...

...as is clearly represented by the blackened area on the outside of the bubble depicted below...

And in concurrence with your insistence on the “somethingness” of space, I suggest that the so-called “empty space” that exists between the galaxies, stars, and planets, should be perceived as being constructed from the same fundamental essence as that of the galaxies themselves.

In other words, the fact that we are experiencing what appears to be empty space between the phenomenal features of the universe...

(at what physicists call the “local” level of reality)

...is simply an illusion resulting from the way in which the patterns of quantum information are arranged at the deeper (“non-local”) level of reality - (a level that physicist David Bohm called the “Implicate Order”).

Indeed, it is there (at the non-local level of reality) where the entire universe...

(via the superpositioned entanglement of the “Universal Wavefunction”)

...is alleged to exist in a state of oneness in which there is no separation of anything.

I guess the point is that I agree with your statement that “empty space” is, in fact, “something.”

Because it seems quite obvious (to me, anyway) that the endless and boundless, omnidirectional nothingness that is constantly giving-way to the expansion of our little bubble of reality (again, as depicted in the illustration)...

...represents a clear and tangible visualization of what the word “infinity” truly applies to, and therefore is neither “magic,” nor something that merely exists within the mind.
_______

Because it seems quite obvious (to me, anyway) that the endless and boundless, omnidirectional nothingness that is constantly giving-way to the expansion of our little bubble of reality (again, as depicted in the illustration)...

...represents a clear and tangible visualization of what the word “infinity” truly applies to, and therefore is neither “magic,” nor something that merely exists within the mind.
_______

But what if time itself did not exist in that boundless nothingness? Or if Einstein's conception of space-time is correct, there is no space-time in the nothingnesses. It simply does not exist because it has no time co-ordinate. Spacetime may have started at the Big Bang and expanded out from there.

That gives a nice neat universe that is finite both in space and time.